For example, in a manufacturing process of a semiconductor device, photolithography processing is performed in which a resist coating treatment of applying a resist solution onto, for example, a semiconductor wafer (hereinafter, referred to as a “wafer”) as a substrate to form a resist film, exposure processing of exposing the resist film to a predetermined pattern, a developing treatment of developing the exposed resist film and so on are performed in sequence to form a predetermined resist pattern on the wafer. Then, using the resist pattern as a mask, an etching treatment is performed on a film to be treated on the wafer and a removal treatment of the resist film is then performed, to form a predetermined pattern in the film to be treated.
Incidentally, to increase the capacitance such as DRAM, higher density of holes patterns constituting a capacitor in the DRAM is required. For this end, the resist pattern is increasingly miniaturized and, for example, the wavelength of light for the exposure processing in the photolithography processing is increasingly shortened. However, it is now difficult to form a fine resist pattern at a level of, for example, several nanometers only by the method of increasingly reducing the wavelength of light because there are limits in technique and cost for shortening the light source of exposure.
Hence, there is a proposed wafer treatment method using a block copolymer composed of a polymer having a hydrophilic property (hydrophilic polymer) and a polymer having a hydrophobic property (hydrophobic polymer) (Patent Document 1). In this method, for example, hole patterns are formed on the wafer at positions corresponding to a hexagonal close-packed structure in a plan view. More specifically, circular patterns are formed of the film having hydrophilic property as a base at some of the positions corresponding to the hexagonal close-packed structure on the wafer, and the block copolymer is applied onto the wafer after pattern formation. Then, when the block copolymer is phase-separated into the hydrophilic polymer and the hydrophobic polymer, the circular patterns having hydrophilic property formed as the base function as guides, and columnar hydrophilic polymers align to be in contact with the upper surfaces of the patterns. In addition to the above, hydrophilic polymers autonomously and regularly align in sequence at positions corresponding to the hexagonal close-packed structure from the columnar hydrophilic polymers as starting points.
Thereafter, for example, the hydrophilic polymers are removed, whereby fine hole patterns are formed of the hydrophobic polymer on the wafer. Then, an etching treatment is performed on a film to be treated using the patterns of the hydrophobic polymers as a mask, whereby a predetermined pattern is formed in the film to be treated.